After attending college in Vermont, Peter Gregg worked as an agriculture reporter for a local newspaper, then fell into a niche field: He became a maple syrup farmer.
“I got into sugarmaking through a friend and neighbor who invited me to hang out with him while he boiled sap all day,” Mr. Gregg said. “I love being outside in nature, I love trees and I have a wicked sweet tooth, so it was a perfect match.”
He soon bought a thousand-tree maple orchard on the Vermont-New York border, and then, in 1999, he founded a trade publication, The Maple News, which still prints 11 editions a year. “We produce enough syrup every year to fill a hot tub,” he said of the farm. “It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.”
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More recently, Mr. Gregg has leaned further into his writing career. His first book, “The Sugar Rush: A Memoir of Wild Dreams, Budding Bromance and Making Maple Syrup,” was published last year. He is working on a novel, to be titled “Pancake Cowboy.”
Over the years, Mr. Gregg, now 58 and divorced, would travel to New York City often, taking his son and daughter — now in their 20s — for visits. Both eventually went off to college in the city.
“A tiny town in the middle of the woods was no place for an empty-nest bachelor,” he said. “I needed a jolt. I wanted to reinvent myself as a writer. The publishing industry is based in New York and there are so many resources for writers.”
He sold his house in Greenwich, N.Y., (pronounced “Green Witch”) to a couple from Brooklyn — “We traded places,” he said — and two years ago rented a studio in Carnegie Hill, on the Upper East Side. It was more affordable than other parts of Manhattan and close to the urban forest of Central Park, in case he felt homesick for the woods.
“Going from a sizable house to a studio was an adjustment, but I needed a beachhead and knew from the get-go that I wanted to buy in Manhattan,” he said.
The studio, in a small co-op building, had one closet, endless beeping from trucks delivering to a nearby food establishment, and cockroaches. “I would rather see a bear than a cockroach,” he said.
He was offered the chance to buy that co-op unit and declined. But he did want to remain in Carnegie Hill, and he said he wanted his new home to look “New Yorky,” which to him meant having a stoop outside and exposed brick inside. His budget for a one-bedroom ranged up to $600,000; in that area of Manhattan, that meant a co-op.
Layout was important. After living in the cramped studio, Mr. Gregg wanted some kind of hallway and a bathroom that was centrally located, not en suite.
He connected with Leanne Stella, a licensed salesperson with Brown Harris Stevens. “Renting first is good for someone from out of town because you become realistic about how people live and the amount of space they get,” she said.
The hunt ended up taking much longer than he expected. “Peter had very specific criteria,” Ms. Stella said. “He wanted to walk to Whole Foods. There were points when I thought he was never going to buy anything.”
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